Manolo's Shoe Blog

The Maestro Speaks!

2009-07-13T18:32:00Z

Manolo says, our muse, the Maestro Manolo Blahnik, has given the most provocative interview to Vanessa Friedman of the Financial Times. Here is the brief excerpt.

The problem is that the conversation keeps floating away. “Are shoes so important?” he asks. “Really? If I was a woman, I would be dressed in the same thing for a month and just change my hat and gloves. Maybe my shoes too; yes, I see what you mean but, really, it’s jewels that change an outfit. And I do love gloves. And I adddore hats. There are toooo many shoes now. I always tell the children,” – Blahnik is an honorary professor at the Royal College of Art and the “children” are his students – “‘Don’t do shoes! Do hats!’ And the shoes are so strange, so vulgar. I hate these platforms that are all over the place today; they are all about grabbing attention. They are suburban! I never do a platform. Well, I did, in the 1970s, but that was a bad experience.”

[…]

“I detest this period of fantasy we were in where you had something for three seconds and then you threw it away,” he says, opening his eyes wide in horror. “The last few years have been a nightmare! It’s one thing to have a dream, but this was overkill! I was in Los Angeles last year, because they were giving me that award where they can spit on you and stomp on you. What’s it called? A star on the Walk of Style?” He means the Rodeo Drive Walk of Style, a series of plaques awarded to fashion and style legends that are embedded into a Beverly Hills pavement. “Yes, the Walk of Style. They asked me who I wanted to give me the award: Chloë Sevigny? I said, ‘No, I don’t get her.’ Lucy Liu? Oh, she was divine, I looooove oriental girls. Do you love oriental girls? And she was wearing something by [Givenchy designer] Riccardo Tisci, who is my favourite boy – what were we talking about?”

In the humble opinion of the Shoeblogger, this is one of the best articles ever written about the Maestro Manolo Blahnik. You must go read the whole thing.

Pickles!

2009-07-11T17:49:53Z

Manolo says, Mr. Henry on Pickles!

Manolo the Columnist

2009-07-10T14:14:23Z

Manolo says, here is the Manolo’s latest column for the Express of the Washington Post.

Dear Manolo,

It’s been an awful summer for me. The weather has been cold and rainy, the economy is getting progressively worse, I’m worried about keeping my job, and my long-term boyfriend refuses to get serious about our relationship. In short, I’ve got a terrible case of the summer time blues. Please help.

Jennifer

Manolo says, sadly, as every rocakabilly cool cat knows, “there ain’t no cure for the summertime blues.”

Happily, your disease can be managed until fall arrives, at which point you may gracefully segue into the Autumnal Doldrums, to be later replaced by the Holiday Downers.

Until that time, the best possible palliative care can be achieved through the frequent application of seasonally appropriate shoes. Indeed, this is what the Manolo does when he finds himself in the lengthy blue funk: he self-medicates with the shoe shopping.

“But,” you may ask, “are there deleterious side-effects, about which I must worry, Dr. Manolo?”

Yes. As with all medical treatments, seasonal wardrobe adjustment therapy brings with it the risk of side-effects, although, thankfully, if proper dosages are maintained, they are minor, and are mostly limited to the mild lightening of the pocketbook, and constriction in the closet space area.

Look here is the Pansy from Born, the flowery, flirty flip-flop available in six marvelous mood-enhancing colors.

Scenes from the G-8 Meeting

2009-07-10T00:08:59Z

Manolo says, apparently the American and French administrations share the matters of mutual interest.

The Manolo Twitters

2009-07-09T23:21:16Z

Manolo says, here are the few witticisms the Manolo has twittered over the past couple of the weeks.

To the middle-aged lady at the next table: you are not the newsboy, and yet you wear the newsboy cap. Please explain yourself, Madam.

***

Malibu celebrity sighting: Lindsey Lohan!!!!!!! At the Country Mart with Samantha Whats-her-noodle persued by the paparazzi mob.

***

Movie Review: Tetro. The ridiculous yet compelling Oedipal melodrama. As it should, Buenos Aires automotive traffic plays the major role.

***

Manolo Pet Peeves: grown women who affect to walk like the little girls. Subset of Peeve: Celebrities who stand with toes turned in for pix.

***

When Lady GaGa sings, “Just got my ass squeezed by Sexy Cupid” the Manolo imagines “The Ecstacy of St Theresa” by Bernini. Is this wrong?

***

Poor Michael Jackson. So talented, so tormented, so sad.

***

Billy Joel and his wife are getting divorced? Ayyy! This most romantic of love matches is ending? Can there be any hope for the rest of us?

So, go sign up for the Manolo’s Twitter and get the wisdom of the Manolo delivered in 140-character doses.

Whose Shoes Wednesday…The Answer!

2009-07-09T14:01:09Z

Manolo asked, whose shoes?

Manolo answers, it is the Weird Al Yankovic!

Congratulations to the Manolo’s internet friend Moxie, who was the first to correctly identify this personage of note.

And now, as the special bonus, something the Manolo calls “The Transformative Power of Good Grooming.”

Whose Shoes Wednesday

2009-07-09T14:03:58Z

Manolo asks, whose shoes?

Guaranteed to Cure Nostalgia for the Early 80s

2009-07-07T17:37:16Z

Manolo says, if like the Manolo you are the person who occasionally feels wistful for the early 1980s, this one-hit wonder from Toto Coelo will cure you riki-tik.

The World’s Oldest Basketball Shoes!

2009-07-03T18:59:43Z

Manolo says, from the Manolo’s friends at Boing Boing come news of the discovery of the world’s oldest kicks!

Gary Pifer a vintage clothing dealer found the 116 year old sneakers while combing through picked over items, that were contained within a victorian era trunk. “As I arrived late, I was told that all the good stuff was gone”, said Mr. Pifer.

He paid 50 cents for the brown high top canvas sneakers made by the Colchester Rubber Company. Later that night, Mr. Pifer was shocked to discover, during an internet search, that the brand went out of business in 1893.

“In a instant, I knew this discovery would be re-writing basketball and sneaker history, as these sneakers are 25 years older than the 1917 Converse All-Stars”, added Pifer. The Colchester Rubber Co. was located in Colchester, Connecticut and was in business from 1888 to 1893.

Naturally, this being the Age of Commerce, Mr. Pifer, who discovered the shoes in 2004, has already set up the company to market reproductions of these marvelous shoes.

And, the Manolo has to say, he would happily wear these shoes.

Manolo the Columnist

2009-07-03T15:46:16Z

Manolo says, here is the Manolo’s latest column for the Express of the Washington Post.

Dear Manolo

I recently graduated and started a new job as a research chemist. This means long hours on my feet in the lab, and close-toed shoes in the summertime!. Can you recommend any close-toed shoes that are comfortable, fashionable, *and* affordable? It seems an impossible combination.

Genna

Manolo says, since the time of the famously maladapted and nerdy Isaac Newton, scientists have been the modern priestly class, intermediaries between our superstitious world of ignorance and their logical world of higher knowledge, engaged in arcane rites that are as incomprehensible to us lay people as the differences between homoousios and homoiousios were to the medieval serfs.

And as members of this modern priesthood–as guileless and unworldly in its way as the Benedictine order–scientists are not expected to be overly concerned about the matters of this world. They have bigger fish to dissect.

Unfortunately, unlike the medieval monks, the modern scientists must pick out their own clothing, the practice that has resulted, more or less, in disaster. And thus one cannot help but notice that most scientists fall somewhere between the Nutty Professor and Steve Urkel on the continuum of fashion.

Thank heavens for the lab coat!

Look, here is the Make the Braid from Kenneth Cole New York. The cute loaferish shoe that will look good as you unlock the secrets of the universe. And it is on the sale!